Overstocking is not required to prevent a loss of sale with Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory solutions.

Balancing Cost and Market Availability Through ETA Prediction in a Competitive Market

The Need: Real-Time Goods Monitoring for Optimized Inventory

In a highly competitive market like Consumer Electronics, success is determined not just by the cost, but also the availability of the SKUs at the point of sale (POS). Stocking excess product at regional warehouses to ensure POS availability has a steep impact on inventory holding cost. However, minimizing inventory can also lead to possible loss of sale due to stock unavailability.

Transit time from production facility to stores may range from 48 hours to more than a week for electronics shipments, and the situation was no different for Philips. Knowing the ETA of goods in-transit, and reducing the window of delivery, were vital to keep costs down, while also ensuring merchandise availability was never a concern - even for one day.

Roambee’s solution enabled Philips to monitor their shipments in real time and better forecast the ETA of their inventory in-transit. Philips’ regional warehouse no longer needed to stock excess inventory or rely on “last shipped date” that the production facility gave them. They were empowered to make inventory plans on the go, and adjust as the situation demanded.

The ability to bring about better SLA adherence with their third party logistics providers increased predictability and brought down the window of delivery. This in-turn ensured that overstocking was not required to prevent a loss of sale and a Just-In-Time (JIT) model could be implemented for trimming supply chain costs.

Roambee provided Philips with wireless, portable tracking devices ("Bees") that provided real-time location visibility on vehicles hired from the market on a per-transaction basis. Data collected by Roambee’s cloud-based solution was analyzed to provide ETA and exceptions such as unscheduled stops, wrong routing, and delays – all of which were available immediately to customers through a secure web portal. Additionally, Roambee's on-demand business model provided Philips with flexibility to increase or decrease Bees based on their seasonal need, and zero upfront capital expense for hardware, software, or data services.

Philips is also leveraging Roambee’s open APIs to integrate their Transport Management System (TMS) data with Roambee’s analytics platform to create a single-visibility dashboard for normalizing disruptions.

Roambee Services

Roambee delivers global, on-demand, real-time visibility tracking and conditioning monitoring for goods and assets in-transit and in-field. Contact us today and see how Roambee can improve operational efficiencies, mitigate risk, and deliver measureable ROI for you.

Founded in 2013, the Roambee team has decades of distribution & logistics domain experience including multi-code barcode, RFID, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, GSM Enterprise application integration, cloud application development experience in multi-national corporations and other successful start-ups.

Enjoy the Benefits of Worldwide Real-Time Monitoring

Safeguard your assets in the field. Wireless “Bees” with long battery life provide the reliable information you need to reduce theft and abuse and track equipment location and inventory. The industry's only pay-as-you-go, "on-demand" model makes asset monitoring flexible, scalable, and affordable.

Get real-time insights into your shipments in transit. Pay-as-you-go wireless devices (“Bees”) deliver visibility, tracking, and condition monitoring—with no upfront costs for hardware or software. Cloud-based data, reports, and analytics are included from an easy-to-access web portal and mobile apps.

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Join hundreds of companies across the globe already using Roambee's innovative technology and affordable "pay-as-you-go" model to monitor their shipments and their assets in the field, with no upfront investment in hardware or software.